Justice Kennedy Offered Schools Racial Workarounds

While he voted with the majority in the Supreme Court's 5-4 ruling that U.S. schools cannot assign students to particular schools based upon their race, Justice Anthony Kennedy offered schools a virtual menu of other "creative" ways they could reduce "racial isolation."

Finding Chief Justice Roberts' majority opinion statement that "the way to stop discrimination on the basis of race is to stop discriminating on the basis of race," overly simplistic, Kennedy wrote his own opinion offering ways in which schools could continue to be "race-conscious" when making facility location and enrollment plans.

In his opinion, Justice Kennedy encourages both school administrators and concerned parents to find ways to "bring together students of different racial, ethnic, and economic backgrounds. . .without resorting to widespread governmental allocation of benefits and burdens on the basis of racial classifications."

As examples of constitutionally acceptable racial balancing techniques, Kennedy suggests "strategic site selection of new schools; drawing attendance zones with general recognition of the demographics of neighborhoods; allocating resources for special programs; recruiting students and faculty in a targeted fashion; and tracking enrollments, performance, and other statistics by race."

Seattle Already on Board
In Seattle, a city directly impacted by the Parents Involved in Community Schools v. Seattle School District No. 1 ruling, schools are already making plans to incorporate Justice Kennedy's suggest strategies for racial integration.

"Even though Seattle Public Schools lost a landmark desegregation case before the U.S. Supreme Court Thursday, district officials were declaring victory because of Justice Anthony Kennedy's opinion," writes Emily Heffter in the Seattle Times.

First on the Seattle School Board's agenda will be the expenditure of $200,000 to modernize three mainly African-American schools in an effort to attract a "more diverse student body." In addition, the Board plans to redraw it's district boundaries, assigning specific school attendance on a house-by-house basis.

Full Equality in Education Remains Elusive
Whether the Supreme Court's ruling in Parents v. Seattle Schools will help right the failures of previous landmark cases, Plessy v. Ferguson and Brown v. Board of Education to ensure equal quality and opportunity in public education remains to be seen.

Also See:
School Desegregation After Parents v. Seattle District (Civil Liberties)
Don't Be Obtuse, Mr. Chief Justice (Civil Liberties)